Incarnationally Yours!

Text: St. John 1:1-14
Theme: “Incarnationally Yours!”
The Nativity of Our Lord/Christmas Day
December 25, 2011
First Presbyterian Church
Denton, Texas
Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

IN THE NAME OF JESUS

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.
6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Far away from Texas in the State of Vermont – specifically, the University of Vermont, a team of mathematicians have been involved in a fascinating little project over the last couple of years. They are doing scientific analysis of Twitter messages. They didn’t draw broad generalization from examining a few tweets here and there. Rather, they looked at over 4.6 billion of them. They assigned what they called “happiness grades” to more than 10,000 of the most common words used on Twitter. They crunched the numbers and put it all on a nice graph. The project revealed that, based on the sampling data (if you will), happiness is on a “downward slope”or, as they say, “trending” downward.

Another similar study examined yet more tweets. (By the way, tweets are limited to 140 alpha-numeric characters.) The results: Happiness really hit the skids when Michael Jackson died. Tweets weren’t very happy, either, on the day when the U.S. Government agreed to buy up toxic bank assets. Then, consider the various national disasters that gripped the world in 2010 and 2011. The collective tweeting was dismal; the cumulative attitude of countless twitterers was not good. I wonder about the tweets that may or may not have come from Nigeria where, as was reported this morning, two Christian churches were bombed. Still, the overall results did show that, based on this study of Twittering, happiness peaked on Christmas Day. A close second was Christmas Eve.

Obviously, what I bring to you is a message and not a tweet. Maybe some would rather have a Christmas “tweet sermon” particularly on a year when Christmas Day falls on a Sunday. “Mom, do we HAVE TO go to church again today?” is likely a question asked in many homes this morning.

It would be hard to pack a belief, or a world-view, into 140 alpha-numeric characters. I won’t even try. I’m only too aware, though, that it can take way less than 140 words to hurt someone’s feelings very deeply, or, alternatively, to lift their spirits. Be that as it may, I do want to bring to your attention a very old but still very current belief system and view of the world on this Christmas morning. While adherents may not even be able to give it a name, they still hold to it. It’s called Gnosticism. The original proponents were called Gnostics. It was a strange yet interesting mix of religious concepts and philolophy. They held that gnosis, or “knowledge”, was like a spark that lay within every human being. This “spark” was the reality of life. God, or a higher power, or whatever you wanted to call it, was like this celestial ball of fire – the ultimate knowledge, if you will. It’s no surprise that in many American institutions of higher education, matters of learning and wisdom are symbolized by light, or the “lamp of learning”, etc. There’s a hint of Gnosticism in that.

Now the problem, as the Gnostics saw it, was that this spark inside of us was trapped. It was enslaved inside our bodies. Only when this spark, or light, or knowledge, or soul became disembodied, or set free, could it finally travel to its origin or destination – that is, back to God (if that’s what you wanted to call it), back to the origin, back to the ball of divine fire. What held humanity back, it was thought, was, ironically, humanity itself – to wit, our own flesh and blood. The problem with us, then, is simply that we’re human, and once we are freed from the prison house of our bodies, reality will finally be what it was – and is! – meant to be. The rationalization for a good deal of bad things in the world fits hand-in-glove with basic, Gnostic thought: “Ah, that’s just human nature.”

While Gnostic thinkers did their Gnostic thinking hundreds of years before Christ’s birth, the basic point was very much prevalent when Jesus was born. The problem with humanity, it was held, is that we are trapped in our own flesh and blood. Ultimate freedom is when we finally shed this mortal coil, and the spark can fly back to the fire.

Now the evangelist and apostle John, the author of today’s Holy Gospel reading, has given us an explanation – some have even referred to it as an interpretive poem – of the Christmas story. Parts of it, particularly beginning, would certainly have caught the attention of the Gnostics. It starts like this: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

“So far, so good,” our Gnostic friend might say – both then and now. “Sounds pretty good to me; we all have the divine light within us.” But then there comes a statement that the Gnostic would have no truck with. John declares that the “Word” – or, as it is also referred to, the “Light” – became “flesh and dwelt among us.” The implication was clear: it’s not just ONE light or A light. We’re talking about THE light, the ultimate ball of fire! It was coming into the world; and, more than that, becoming flesh.

John introduced the revolutionary thought that the problem is NOT that we’re human. The problem is NOT that we have flesh and blood. The problem is not that we are trapped in a body. Quite to the contrary, at the first Christmas the almighty honored our flesh; God honored what God had created. And God did so to such a degree that God became what God first created: real, live flesh and blood.

The problem with us is not that we’re human. The problem is that we are sinners. But the good news is this – and I’ll let John have the last Word:

To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

Celebrate this day, for all its worth, as the child of God that you are!

Amen.